


you got to be free

by llwydion



Series: a peek into alternate timelines (sw do-overs) [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: (well not all the things but most of the things), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Yoda fixes all the things, Yoda goes to Tatooine, Yoda master of trolling, just no one talks about it, no one mentions their hatred of sand!, the hatred's still there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 11:25:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13523244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llwydion/pseuds/llwydion
Summary: A traveler lands on Tatooine. He’s garbed in simple light robes, hooded and cloaked as many of the others arriving on the same transport are. He moves like an old, old man whose joints and old wounds are weighing him down as much as the years on his shoulders.He’s also about half a meter tall.





	you got to be free

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Come Together" by the Beatles (but personally i prefer the Gary Clark Jr. version)

A traveler lands on Tatooine. He’s garbed in simple light robes, hooded and cloaked as many of the others arriving on the same transport are. He moves like an old, old man whose joints and old wounds are weighing him down as much as the years on his shoulders.

He’s also about half a meter tall.

One of his fellow passengers, a tall, imposing man, clicks his tongue quietly as he waits for the old dwarf to _get down the ramp already, he hasn’t got all day_.

Only to find himself tripping on his shoelaces as he takes his first step onto that selfsame ramp. He swears later, in a seedy, crowded cantina, that the dwarf (if it is a dwarf, really, who’s he to say with all the cloaking) was watching him with a twinkle in its dastardly eyes.

(The dwarf in question is smirking at him from a shadowed seat in the corner, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?)

When he goes to bed that night, he finds that his pillows are all turned inside out. As in, the synth cotton stuffing was on the outside, plastered neatly to the outer covering. Also, his wallet’s missing, and he curses the sudden loss of his seventeen wupiupi.

He knows then that he really shouldn’t have messed with that little one.

(When his shoes attack him, in the middle of the night, he runs for the next outward-bound transport. Small or not, he knows a Jedi when he sees one.)

* * *

Watto has seen many people come and go. It’s how Tatooine is, after all, the people are as ever-changing as the shifting sands of the Wastes. So when a strange small creature wearing a long robe comes into his shop to ask him for a used speeder, he doesn’t blink twice.

“Why you be wantin’ a speeder, eh? Someone like you?”

“Size matters not, hm? Reasons, I have.”

“Eh, yeah. Just make sure you’re payin’ me good money. No one takes Imperial credits around here, not even the troopers.”

“Payment, you will receive in full.”

“Good, good. I think I might have just what you’ll need, if you’ll step out back this way.”

Watto closes shop that night, one speeder less and three wupiupi richer. It’ll do for the next podrace match, he thinks.

(He wins that match, and the next one, and the next one, by betting on the pod with the worst odds. Everyone wonders at his newfound wealth, until he decides that winning three races is three races too many and stops going at all. Sometimes he holds the original three wupiupi he got, staring at them, as if they were a good luck charm. You never knew, with Jedi.)

* * *

Luke Skywalker, age nine and four months, comes home to see a small green alien sit down at the table with his uncle and aunt.

“You never told me we had company, Uncle!”

His aunt and uncle turn to him, brows furrowed. The stranger stares at him.

“Ah, Luke,” Owen Lars says. “This is Yoda. He was a friend of your father’s.”

For some reason, he feels a sudden, inexplicable urge to bow. He stuffs his hands in his sleeves to get rid of the feeling and nods respectfully.

“Hello, Mister Yoda. It’s nice to meet you.”

The being looks back with a twinkle in his old eyes.

“Nice, it is, hm? Honey-tongued like his father, this one is.”

Luke’s eyes grow big and round. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru _never_ talk about his father in front of him, or at all!

“You knew my father? What was he like? Who was he?”

The being smiles.

“A good friend, your father was. A good pilot, too. Intelligent, yes, hotheaded and impulsive. Told him to learn control, I did.”

Then, quietly, so quietly Luke had to strain his ears to hear. “Told Obi-Wan too, I had.”

The name is a new one. “Obi-Wan? Who’s that?”

The being blinked innocently at him. “Obi-Wan, I mentioned? Mishearing things, young ears must be.”

Luke pouted. It wasn’t every day that a stranger showed up on your doorstep who knew your father and was willing to talk about him.

“Point me in the direction, will you?”

Owen nodded. “We call him Crazy Old Ben. Some of them over in town, they call him the Wizard of the Wastes. He lives in the Juntland Wastes. You’ll need a speeder to get there, it’s a fair distance. Just head towards the mountains, and you’ll not get lost.”

The being nods and hops off his chair.

“May the Force be with you.”

Uncle Owen clears his throat. Aunt Beru nudges him, and Luke is so very, very confused. Again, that strange feeling. This time, it whispers a single phrase, which Luke dutifully repeats.

“And may the Force be with you too, Master.”

The little green alien smiles at him, hops on his speeder, and drives off into the distance.

(Luke starts to listen to that little nagging feeling, after that. Sometimes it’ll tell him that a storm is coming, because he gets a funny feeling in his stomach. Sometimes it’ll whisper things to him, things that he _knows_ he shouldn’t know but that he knows anyways, like how to move that vaporator cover just a few millimeters to the left to create a tighter seal. And sometimes, it is quiet, and he just knows.)

* * *

Obi-Wan is waiting for him in the doorway of his house when he arrives.

“Master Yoda.”

“Master, I am no longer. Master, you are no longer. Jedi, we are, but the last for a while.”

“Please, Yoda, call me Ben. Obi-Wan is no longer me.”

Yoda looks him over with a critical eye. The desert has not been kind to Obi-Wan; it has scoured new lines into his face and new silver into his hair. He remembers a young initiate, glowing with happiness in the creche.

He hums.

“Why have you come? I thought we agreed that we would stay apart unless something of great urgency arose.”

“Great urgency, yes. Happened, something has.”

Obi-Wan tenses. “What?”

Yoda looks over at him. “Your Life Day, today is.”

He blinks.

Yoda smiles and holds out a leaf-wrapped parcel. “Open it later, you shall. Back to town, I go. Supplies, I must obtain, if Luke Skywalker, we are to train.”

Obi-Wan opens his mouth to retort, but the Force feels _right_ , as it has not in so very, very long.

“Yes, Master.”

Before Yoda leaves, he gives Obi-Wan Kenobi another look.

“Obi-Wan, you still are.”

(The package contains a smooth, fist-sized river rock. The one Master Qui-Gon gave him on his thirteenth Life Day, the one he thought he buried with his old Master’s ashes. Damn that old troll.)

* * *

Luke Skywalker first meets his father in the chaos of a star destroyer hangar bay. He can sense that Masters Yoda and Ben are on the ship, as well as Han and Leia, and all he has to do is run towards them and away from this armor-clad black hole in the Force.

Before he turns, he holds his lightsaber up in a simple salute, an acknowledgement of his past and what he would never become in the future.

(His Masters have taught him too well for him to ever give up his compassion.)

* * *

Luke Skywalker says his goodbyes to his father on the deck of a slowly-imploding Imperial star destroyer. His father looks up at him with his own eyes, for the first time in both of their lives.

“You always did take after your mother, and for that, I am glad.”

Luke weeps as his father passes, knowing that he is, once more, the last Jedi in the galaxy.

( _But you are also the first of the new_ , a voice that sounds suspiciously like Master Yoda's whispers in the back of his mind)

* * *

The celebrations on Endor last for most of the night. As the fires slowly die down, three Force-beings are joined by a fourth.

“Took you long enough, Anakin.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault I was delayed. There were some people I had to say hello to. Like my fully grown son, or my daughter and her boyfriend."

Obi-Wan laughs. It's carefree and happy and  _Force_ he's missed them so much.

"Did you give him the shovel talk?"

Anakin splutters.

Qui-Gon reaches over and ruffles his hair. “Well, you’re here now, and that’s what matters.”

Yoda just smiles at him, eyes old and knowing and kind.

(Some days later, Luke begins to suspect that he’s acquired an entourage of Force-beings intent on passing on all of their knowledge to him. Literally, all of it.

If he ever hears his father wax poetic about the time he and someone he calls Snips got stuck on another planet during the Clone Wars, he’ll ask Master Ben to smack his father. Or maybe Master Yoda will start a prank war, then he’ll finally be left in peace to rebuild the Jedi.)

* * *

It’s years later when Luke realizes he’ll never be rid of them. He’s training a new batch of learners today, and two someones thought that it was a good idea to throw rotting fruit at his students.

Now he has a group of angry students and two very mischevious Force ghosts to deal with. Oh, and Obi-Wan’s not helping, since he’s off drinking tea with Qui-Gon _yet again_.

What even is his life, he thinks, as he goes to placate both sides, once again.

(When he finally joins them, the first thing he does is dye his father's hair bright pink. Obi-Wan doesn't stop laughing for  _days_.)

**Author's Note:**

> > anakin bugs han until he agrees to marry leia (because otherwise his father-in-law doesn't. ever. shut. up)  
> > obi-wan and qui-gon have a tea party every afternoon at four pm, like clockwork  
> > ben solo suffers from force ghost grandfather lessons  
> > rey, as it turns out, is a great prankster (she's learned from the best)  
> > luke just wants a day where he won't be afraid of his own toothpaste. or his own shampoo. or his own bed, after a particularly epic prank.
> 
> (really i should be sleeping, but inspiration struck again, and here i am, a thousand or so words richer and even more sleep-deprived)


End file.
